Orchard Flower (Version Bravo)

by Lubrican

Chapter : Prologue | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15

Chapter Eleven

"What's going on?" asked Jill, a little breathlessly, after her mother and Zack were gone.

"I have no clue," I said.

"Oh Bob, I screwed things up so much," she moaned.

"Your heart was in the right place," I said.

"But he really IS a great guy, and I just know she'd love being around him if she got to know him."

"Maybe that's what she's doing," I said. "Getting to know him, I mean."

"Do you think so?" she asked hopefully.

"Let's just say for the sake of having reasonably comfortable holidays ... that I hope so," I said.

I didn't find out what went on during that tour until January, after the kids had gone back to school. There were some clues, of course, but I'll get to them later. For now, I'll just describe it the way Lynne did when she told me about it while we were sitting next to my wood stove one cold evening, working on a jigsaw puzzle.

She said that once they got away from the house, Zack began apologizing profusely. He claimed it was all his fault, and that he talked Jill into inviting him home for the holidays.

"Is that so," Lynne said, her voice brittle.

"Yes Ma'am," said Zack emphatically.

"So how did she know all about the fact that you wanted to seduce me?" asked Lynne.

"Um ... she didn't know," he tried.

"She told Bob that was the whole point to you coming here," said Lynne.

"Oh." He looked deflated. "It wasn't the whole point," he added.

"Is that so," said Lynne again.

"Jill really did tell me a lot about you," he said. "I had a girlfriend in high school. We were in love. I know everybody says teenagers don't understand what love really is, and it might be true, but we believed we were in love and it felt like love to me. Anyway, she was riding around in a car with a bunch of her girlfriends and they got hit by a truck and she was killed. Nobody understood how I felt about that. They said it was a tragedy, and sad, but that I'd get over it, and that there would be other girls and all that stuff. But the sadness I felt was bone deep. I knew it would never ever be completely gone. I knew Jill's dad was gone and I could see that same sadness in your eyes in that picture she showed me, and I knew you'd felt the same thing I had felt." They walked on a few steps. "Plus you are a stone fox, of course. I can't deny recognizing that."

The juxtaposition between his heartfelt confession, and his boyish ... boyishness ... was so stark as to cause Lynne to actually stop and stare at him. She had been touched by the story of his girlfriend, only to be shocked by his blatant reference to Lynne as a sexual being.

"I'm sorry!" he blurted again. He looked anguished. "I always say the wrong thing when I'm around a woman I really like."

Lynne stood there, looking at him for a few seconds.

"How can you really like me?" she asked pointedly. "You only met me a couple of hours ago."

He looked confused at first, and then thoughtful. He actually took the question seriously.

"Well ... you're smart. You really are doing most of the right things in managing your orchard, at least according to what I've learned so far in my classes. And you're interesting and fun to talk to. I love your laugh." He grinned weakly.

"Is that all?" She wasn't letting him off the hook.

"No," he answered. "But it's hard to explain. While we were talking, you know, before lunch, you weren't talking to me like most adults talk to somebody my age. And you for sure weren't talking to me like most adult women have ever talked to me."

"What does that mean?" asked Lynne.

"You acted like you were really interested in what I was saying," he said.

"I was," she said, surprised that he'd find that odd.

"Well most women wouldn't be that interested," he said. "And besides that you're so ..." He trailed off, looking uncomfortable again.

"So what?" asked Lynne.

"It wouldn't be polite to say it," he said guardedly. "I really don't want you to be madder at me than you already are."

"I'll try to control myself," she said. "Out with it. What am I?"

He seemed to argue with himself for some time before he answered. "You really are a remarkably beautiful woman," he finally said. "I can't explain why I think that. I mean you're not beautiful like a model," he said artlessly, "but there's something about you that just makes me want to ..." He blushed and went silent again.

"Want to what, Zack?" she asked, her eyes boring into his.

"Oh man," he moaned.

"Come on, Zack," she wheedled, like she was talking to a five year old. "Tell me what you want, Zack."

His eyes cleared. Suddenly his twenty years of world experience told him something he hadn't paid attention to before this moment. That was that this woman was toying with him ... teasing him at a minimum ... and maybe even baiting him, at worst.

"You know what I want," he said, his voice suddenly deeper. His eyes said clearly that he believed what he'd just said.

Lynne leaned back. The sudden change in his deportment from shy, embarrassed young man, to confident young lion made her heart flutter.

"You have to know that's how you affect a lot of men," he said, turning the tables on her.

"I do not," she said defensively.

"Well you can take my word for it," he said. "Proof of that is our admittedly silly plan to get me here so I could try to seduce you. I really am sorry about that, and I sincerely apologize. I just got carried away by hearing about you, and by your picture. It's painfully obvious to me now that you're a much higher quality woman than would fall for that kind of thing, and you deserve better than that kind of lame treatment."

He didn't know it, but that was the exact moment that Lynne decided he could stay for the rest of the holidays.

They did, in fact, tour the orchard, as well as the rest of the farm. Zack's parents were dry land farmers in Nebraska on a family farm much like that of Lynne's, in that it was smaller than the mega corn operations around it, and they grew a variety of crops based entirely, to Zack's chagrin, on the Old Farmer's Almanac. He admitted, however, that they rarely lost a crop and that his grandfather's and father's complete confidence in the book was something he could not ignore. Nor could he ignore the fact that they made a very comfortable living selling organically grown produce. He was the first in the family to get any formal education in agricultural techniques, and did so despite, rather than because of his father's wishes. He already knew that his two older brothers would take over the farm, and that his college education wouldn't change that.

Of course I didn't know any of that at the time. While that was going on I was alone with Jill, though I was pretty sure that wasn't why Lynne had taken the boy off like that. In the past, every time Jill got me alone she did something about it. But not this time. She was too worried about what was going on between her mother and Zack.

"What if she's grilling him about what I do at school?" she asked anxiously.

"Do you do anything you don't want her to know about?" I asked back.

"Well no, but ..."

"So stop worrying. You wanted them to get to know each other. I suspect that's happening."

"Yeah, but it's not like she's going to lose her head over him, like I hoped would happen."

"You actually thought some young ... dude, for lack of a better term ... could come in here and sweep your mother off her feet?" I looked at her like she was crazy.

"He's so smooth, and sweet!" she moaned. "I've seen him in action."

"So he takes what he can get, wherever he can get it," I said grimly.

"No, he's not like that. He just loves to flirt, and when he does that the girls just melt. He doesn't do anything about it. He believes there should be a deep relationship before there's any sex. Girls have offered, and he turned them down!"

"Did you offer?" I hated myself as soon as I said it.

She gave me a level stare. "No."

"I'm sorry," I said. "I shouldn't have said that."

"No, you shouldn't. That must be what Mom was talking about. I'm fairly disgusted with you right now," she said darkly.

"So I guess making love is out of the question." I thought that might get a smile, but I was wrong.

"You got that right, mister," she said, followed immediately by: "When can we get married?"

Her change of subject, and the contrast between her mood and the question left me speechless.

"I'm not waiting until I graduate from college," she said firmly. "If we're going to be apart, I want to be married while we do it so that when I get pregnant, there won't be any difficulties about it."

"You're going to get pregnant?" I asked faintly.

"Of course I am!" she said in a voice that was less happy than I thought a woman talking about such things should be. "We're going to have at least three children. I was raised alone, and that's not going to happen to my babies."

"But won't that interfere with your studies?" I asked. Do not ask me why I brought that up. I have no idea.

"No," she said simply. "I have as long as it takes to get my degree. I'm going to work in the orchard every summer until I'm done, and then work there after I graduate too, so it doesn't matter how long it takes. Besides, the way I figure it, it could only cost me three years ... one for each baby. I'm going to nurse, and I want them nice and healthy before I turn them over to you while I go back to school."

You have to understand here that I was still off kilter, as far as thinking rationally about this. My mind was still grappling with the idea of having three babies around. I'd been around one or two, but never for that long. Not that I have anything against them. I just don't know what to do with one. So my response was, again, less than stirring.

"I'm going to be the babysitter?" I asked.

"No, silly," she laughed. "You're going to be their father."

"Of course," I said.

"I don't think we can throw something together before I go back," she said, frowning.

That was the point where age and experience gave me the edge.

"Not if you don't want to get on exactly the wrong side of the owner of that orchard you were talking about. Mothers want the wedding of their daughter to be a big deal."

"I know," she sighed. "But I don't care about it. "I just want to be married to you."

I made yet another social and verbal gaffe.

"What brought all this marriage stuff on?" I asked.

She gave me another one of those ice cold, level stares.

"You asked me to," she said, clearly enunciating each word.

"Yes, but you didn't agree to do it then. What changed?" I asked.

She walked up to me slowly and pressed the front of her body against mine. Her hands went to loosely hold my waist.

"I got my period," she said softly.

I blinked several times.

"I beg your pardon?" I replied weakly.

"I started school, which took my mind off of you during the day, but then at night I missed you so much I almost cried. And then my period started, and I realized that all that yummy, creamy sperm you gave me was wasted."

Her lips brushed mine.

"I realized I didn't want it to be wasted. If I had missed my period, because you got me pregnant, at least a little part of you would have been inside me all this time. I could talk to the baby, when I couldn't talk to you, and hold it and pay attention to eating right and all those things that you do for your baby's health and well being. And I decided that, if I'm going to have your babies, I might as well marry you too."

She did a little bump and grind, rubbing her loins against mine, and smiled brilliantly.

"Plus I love you. Is that enough?"

She always had been way ahead of her biological age, so I shouldn't have been surprised that she'd actually thought this out. And she'd even told me she was going to.

We noodled for a while, kissing and rubbing against each other, but didn't go further because we kept expecting Lynne and Zack to come back any minute. As it turned out, we kissed and noodled for an hour before we realized we'd had time to do whatever we wanted. By then, of course, we were sure they'd be back any minute.

Half an hour later, a panting Jill pushed me away.

"If we do this any longer I'm going to have to have some of that yummy sperm I was talking about. I don't think they killed each other, but we need to go find out for sure, don't you think?"

I watched Jill's jeans-clad bubble butt sway as she walked in front of me. It was just sinking in that I would get to watch those hips for years to come. I was imagining them naked, her bare butt cheeks rising and falling, when she turned and held her hand out to me.

"Why are you walking behind me? Come on!"

I thought about telling her what I'd just been thinking. Instead I pulled, which made her waver, off balance, until my arms went around her and stabilized her. I lifted a hand to one breast, bare under the flannel shirt she was wearing.

"You drive me crazy," I said into her lips.

"Oh my," she sighed, with an exaggerated little-girl sigh. "You're being very naughty! I told you we have to stop doing that or I'll want to be naughty too."

"Remember the barn?" I asked, throatily.

"It's winter, Bob," she said, suddenly a rational adult.

"I know, but I can't help it."

"Good," she said. "I want you to be crazy for me. Just not right this second. What if Mom is yelling at him or something? I talked him into this. I feel responsible for him."

"Maybe they're in the barn ... doing what we were doing."

"Yeah ... right. You just want to get me in there so you can paw me."

"I'm pawing you right here," I pointed out, squeezing her breast.

"Well stop!" she said, neither touching my hand nor pulling away from me. "You can paw me later." I let her go and she took my hand again. "If you can behave, we'll check the barn."

"I'll promise anything to get you in the barn," I said solemnly.

She ignored my innuendo and pulled me along. Then she spoke and I realized she hadn't ignored me.

"I want to suck you right now," she said conversationally. "I want to feel you all the way in my throat, filling my tummy with yummy warm sperm."

"I'm willing to help you with that!" I said eagerly.

"We're looking for my mother," she reminded me. "Maybe things can still be salvaged."

Unknown to us, at least at that point in time, things had already been salvaged, though I'm not sure that's how Lynne would have characterized it. I'm not sure she realized what was happening to her as it happened.

Zack had wanted to see the farm equipment so she took him to the barn where the tractor, and picking bins and various other machinery was stored. She knew it was old, and smaller than most farmers used these days, but he didn't talk it down. Rather he examined it closely.

"Somebody knows how to take good care of machinery," he said.

Lynne had been thinking about something he'd said a few minutes past. He'd said something about their "silly plan to seduce her." After his barely veiled admission that he wanted her, she'd been unable to put it out of her mind. Had she thought about it, she might have realized it felt good to have a handsome young man acknowledge her desirability.

"How would you have gone about that?" she suddenly asked.

He stood up from where he'd been examining the tie rod ends on the front of the tractor, something a lot of people let get into bad shape.

"Gone about what?" he asked.

She blushed. She hadn't meant to actually ask the question.

"Never mind," she said hastily.

"Gone about what?" he asked again, stepping closer to her. "You made me answer a few minutes ago. It's only fair that you abide by the same standard."

"You didn't really answer me," she said defensively.

"Did you know what I meant?"

She lowered her eyes. "Yes."

"OK, then. How would I have gone about what?"

She shifted from one foot to the other. "I was just curious about how a boy ... young man ... would go about ... um ... seducing ..." She turned ninety degrees away from him, blushing darkly. "You know ... these days," she finished.

"Oh that," he said carelessly. He said it so carelessly that she turned back, staring at him.

"I could be wrong, of course, but when I studied your picture, you looked like a woman who is very passionate."

"You studied my picture?" Her voice was higher than normal.

"For hours," he sighed.

"Hours?" Her voice went up even more.

"Guys have very vivid imaginations," he said. The fact that he stopped there made it seem almost mysterious.

"Hours!" she whispered.

"I had this crazy notion that I could use that passion," he said.

"How?"

"Are you sure you really want to hear this?" he asked. "It was a stupid idea."

"I'm just curious ... that's all," she said. "I mean it's flattering - in a completely inappropriate manner of course - but it's flattering. It's just been so long since I paid any attention to that kind of thing - years, really - that I wondered what has changed since then."

The inner ends of his eyebrows dipped as he studied the woman facing him. A few minutes ago she had been the adult, chastising a boy. Now, though, that overriding confident maturity seemed to have receded. It was almost as if she was just a woman, and he was just a man.

"Well," he said slowly. "I wanted to get you to laugh. I thought that might loosen you up a little. I hoped to get to hold your hand on some pretext."

"Hold my hand?" Her voice was back up.

He reached for her right hand and laid it palm up in his left one.

"Yes," he said. He stroked her palm with one finger. "Like this. Somebody told me that if you stroke a woman's palm like this, that it acts like an erogenous zone."

Her shoulders twitched as a shiver ran through her body.

"And I probably would have done something stupid like kissing it," he said.

He brought her hand to his lips and kissed her palm with lips that were soft and warm. He let it back down, but didn't release it. His thumb began going in circles around where he'd kissed.

"It's probably an old wives' tale," he said. "But I'd have hoped it was true, and that it would have gotten you going so that I could kiss you."

"Kiss me," she repeated.

"Yeah, I stared at your lips in that picture for a long time, wondering what it would be like to kiss you. I know now that it was really juvenile, but somehow I thought I'd be able to kiss you a few dozen times, and you'd get all wild."

"Kiss me," she said again. Her voice sounded faint.

"Yeah," he laughed. "Like you'd ever want to kiss somebody like me."

She suddenly jerked her hand out of his. She rubbed her palm, where his thumb had been circling.

"It's not completely crazy," she said firmly. "With the right girl ... I mean I suppose there are women who that would appeal to."

"I guess so," he said. "I don't know why, but I've always been kind of attracted to women who have a little experience. Girls my own age are so jerky about things."

"Jerky?"

"You know, they rush ahead and then slam on the brakes. They're nervous and skittish about every new thing. But a woman with a little more maturity has been there, and knows what to expect. It lets a man pull out all the stops and concentrate on ringing her bell."

Lynne frowned. "So you've seduced a lot of older women."

He grinned, his smile wide and his teeth white in the dim light.

"Nope," he admitted cheerfully. "I just believe it would be that way."

"Oh," said Lynne, the frown going away. "So are you a ... um ..."

"Virgin?" he finished. "No. I guess not. That's how I know that being with a younger girl is ... well let's just say less than what it's sometimes hyped up to be."

"Maybe being with an older woman is less than it's hyped up to be too," suggested Lynne.

Zack's look seemed to penetrate her clothing with impunity.

"Maybe," he said softly. "But in your case I kind of doubt it."

She swallowed reflexively. His gaze was so intense that she almost felt it physically.

"Shall I go on?" he asked.

She looked around.

"Maybe later," she said. "I'm getting cold. I can show you the rest of the operation tomorrow, if that's all right."

"I didn't know I'd be invited to stay," he said. "Under the circumstances, I mean."

She seemed to shiver again. "Well ... I suppose we could call it boys being boys. And though it was under false pretenses, you were invited here. And it is too late in the day for me to just kick you out. I suppose it wouldn't be the end of the world if you stayed one night."

"Thank you," he said. "I promise, I'll be on my best behavior."

Then, to her astonishment, he reached for her hand and brought it to his lips again, this time on the reverse side, kissing the skin between her second and third knuckles, European style.

It was right after that when Jill and I ran into them as they left the barn, heading back to the warmth of the house.

Jill fluttered around like a nervous bird, asking what they'd been doing, and where they'd been and if everything was all right. Lynne finally said: "You're not out of the dog house yet, missy, but Zack and I got things straightened out. He's staying the night because I'm not the kind of hostess who would put somebody out in the cold just because of a misunderstanding. So just simmer down and act normal. All right?"

"Yes Ma'am," said Jill, subsiding into quiet. She glanced at me with a worried look and I held out my hand. She took it and fell in beside me, walking behind Lynne and Zack. I looked at the jacket covering Lynne's backside and couldn't help wondering if her bottom looked as alluring as her daughter's.

That led me to think about the fact that there would be no pity fuck for me from Lynne, because now I didn't need one.

And that was just fine with me.

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